It's been such a long time since I last wrote a journal entry - I guess that shows how boring my life is.... nothing to say!!!

But I have something to say now!

I have been accused of being an art thief because I published someone's work on my blog without their permission.

Okay, I hold my hands up, perhaps work shouldn't be published elsewhere without permission, but my point is that the title and artist were listed and the image linked back to the page of origin (deviation page).

As a blogger I consider that I have certain responsibilities to abide by the license that the work is published under. If it is Creative Commons, and if the artist has not specified in their comments that they don't want their art published elsewhere, I consider it is reasonable to use those images in a feature - after all, it is a great form of advertising for the artists.

Here is what Wikipedia says about the Creative Commons license:

A Creative Commons license is one of several copyright licenses that allow the distribution of copyrighted works. A Creative Commons license is used when an author wants to give people the right to share, use, and even build upon a work that they have created. CC provides an author flexibility (for example, you might choose to allow only non-commercial uses of their own work) and protects the people who use/ redsitribute an authors work, so they don't have to worry about copyright infringement, as long as they abide by the conditions the author has specified

As most art is published under a Creative Commons license, I have assumed that as long as I credit the artist and link back to the page of origin, I am abiding by the stipulated rules.

Anyway, this isn't the first time I have been accused of theft, so I stopped publishing photo manipulations quite some time ago, and I now try not to use art from dA - which is very sad, and if I have been affected this way, you can be sure a lot of other bloggers have been also.

dA and it's members rely to a degree on outside intervention - it encourages more membership and it further promotes both the site and the artists.

I was also accused of removing name and watermark - hey, I wouldn't know where to begin even trying to do that! The images were published more than 18 months ago and neither name nor watermark were present then. I know members think that their work being published elsewhere could lead to theft - but blogs usually post images no more than 600px wide (in my case, all images are 580px wide). Although easy to reduce the size of images, enlarging them seriously degrades the quality, making theft for profit or gain much more difficult.

Let me know what you think - am I stealing art by publishing it without permission?

Over to you - I hope you will contribute and make a sensible conversation about this issue.

Well now, here's a very strange request... it has been bugging me for some time exactly what Graham Crackers are!!!!!!!!!

Would one of my dear American friends be kind enough to send me some? I know they are not the best things to embark on a long, overseas journey, and they may arrive as Graham Crumbs (maybe someone, somewhere could market that???!!!!). My parents visited Canada, and they don't appear to sell them there - they are a seriously American thing!!!

I am fully prepared to pay for the cost of the biscuits and the cost of postage, of course - if you have it in your heart to do this for me, and you have a PayPal account - please, please, please either comment on this post or note me.

I am looking for some judges and some prizes (exclusive packs, journal features, etc) - as well as some entrants!

Judges may enter the contest - the judging will be done on a voting basis, so if you are both a judge and an entrant, you simply can't vote for your own entry.

If you're not already a member of the group, please take a look and make sure to read the rules of membership - if you like what you see and you would like to enter this contest, please feel free to join.

Tomorrow (Monday 13th June) the 1st anniversary celebration article will be published on Graphix1 www.graphix1.co.uk … the post will go out at 4pm Spanish time (UTC +2)

If you want a chance to win an Amazon voucher or one of 4 ebooks, please visit the site, follow the rules and enter the competition - if you don't have a Twitter account - create one!!!! You can always cancel it after tweeting the article

I hope you all enter, because I would love to give the prizes away to the dA community - but the winners will be picked at random, using the Random.org Integer Generator www.random.org/integers/

Just a question.... does anyone have a LinkedIn account - and if so, could you let me know who you are on there so I can connect with you please - I would like to join a network but you have to have a certain amount of contacts so they know you aren't 'spamming' the site before they allow you into the group - the group will hopefully help to promote my blog (any which way!!!!)

I know, I know.... new groups keep on springing up, and I have now created another!

A group with a little difference.... it is called and it has the aim of helping both me and the members in that any one who is happy for their art to be published on Graphix1 should submit to the group - there is no guarantee that all art will be accepted to the blog, although most will be accepted to the group.

It's a bit of a different idea, and I am not going to push for members other than through this journal entry - if artists want to be included they do... if they don't, they don't, and that's fine by me

Strangely, not necessarily what I would have thought was an outstanding article - but you just never really know!

Please notice that every single piece featured in that showcase is from the wonderful DeviantArt - that's why I love this site so much.

I may not be a great community player, but I am often present here and love to see not only the outstanding artists, but it is also great to see those I watch improving - and it happens all the time.

Just another little thing - my gradients from my gallery here have been featured in a Japanese book. I received a copy of the book a little while ago and it's very nicely presented, with a CD containing all of the resources included. Although the book is 240 pages, they have taken resources from just a few providers - around 12-14, and of course, at least half of those are from dA!

Each page that showcases one of my gradients sets (there are 9 included) carries my name and website address. It's so nice to have worked so hard for so little for so long and then start seeing the benefits.

I know I am not the only one who has been through all this - and it's stunning when you find something you're good at and enjoy doing and it finally pays dividends - 2 years of working for nothing, you cannot imagine the times I have come so close to giving up - but something stopped me - I felt if I gave it all up it really would have been a lot of work for nothing and now no prospects either - so I carried on, and although I am nowhere close to even making a living from what I do, I can now see things happening... I can see that my name is getting known in the niche I am working in - which is great because I am a bit of a square peg in a round hole in that the sector I aim at is full of young, dynamic people - which I am not!!!!

If you've read this ramble down to here - thank you

My thanks to everyone on dA, to dA itself and to all who have given me opportunities in the vastness of the internet world

Hi, I have to say I am really missing my involvement with dA at the moment, but I am happily very busy and even getting paid for it now!!!

I am feeling really blessed right now... My blog graphix1.co.uk celebrates it's first birthday on June 14th, and I thought I wouldn't be able to keep it going for another year - but I have very generously been given hosting 'for life' - I guess that means as long as the server it's on continues, which should be a long, long time!

In celebration of the first birthday, I am currently working hard on creating a completely new look for the site.

I will also be holding a prize draw - the prize will be a $35 Amazon voucher - I know it's not much, but I also know human nature dictates that people love something for nothing - and the only requirement will be subscribing to the blog either via RSS feed or via email, and leaving a comment to say it's been done - easy peasy!

I have been looking at all the art that comes into my messages, although not leaving many comments - but I really do enjoy dA and the outstanding talent that is present on this site.

I was tagged by and to keep this going I have to tell you 10 things about myself.... hmmmmmm

Here are the rules:

1. You must post these rules.2. Each tagged person must post 10 things about themselves on their journal. 3. You have to choose and tag 10 people and post their icons on the same journal.4. Go to their pages and tell them you tagged them.5. No tag backs

It has been 3 weeks since I have actually managed to find the time to do a journal entry for the weekly Inspired by Design feature.

My life is mayhem - suddenly everyone wants my attention... in some cases that's good and in others not so good, but totally time-consuming!

Here is a small sample of the outstanding digital art and design you can see in this week's feature www.graphix1.co.uk/2011/03/08/… - as always, many thanks to the artists willing to share their work for our inspiration, motivation and viewing pleasure

Also, thanks to digimagicnb and DTM81 for their help in the compilation of the showcase

Time has been my very serious enemy for a couple of weeks now, as I am writing this journal entry I am cooking dinner with one eye on the clock as I have to collect my parents from the airport shortly!!!

I have neglected to promote Inspired by Design for the last couple of weeks, so thought I really have to this week - not only that, I would like to bring you the great news that my appeals for help here on dA paid off and 4 deviants offered their services - all very, very gratefully received.

This week's showcase includes some images selected by digimagicnb and DTM81 I think it is a more diverse showcase which is excellent for the viewers, and it has definitely lightened my load significantly. I have credited them for their efforts, and if you visit the article you will notice it is written by Carol Dmitry and Natalka. Hopefully you will be able to see a lot more from everyone in the future.

da-joint-stock has agreed to be my 'ideas' man as he does not really have the time, but has great and creative ideas seemingly in an endless flow!

But of course, trying to tie all of this help together to get to a point of everyone knowing what they are doing (including me!) has been very time-consuming for me - that will naturally sort itself out, leaving me much more time to dedicate to my blog, my dA group and my own dA account - so I really can't thank these deviants enough for their help

I need someone to help me out with searching for art, ideas for articles, maybe writing articles and more in the future.

At this time I am not in a position to pay for any services, although any income I do receive will be shared with any helper. Also, any articles that are compiled by, dreamt up by or written by someone else will be credited either entirely or partly to that person, with a short bio of the person's own writing at the end of the article.

I am desperately trying to get my blog up in the ranks of 'good, popular' blogs, and I simply can't do it on my own.

I need someone who will push me as much or more than I will push them, who has an average of one hour a day to spare and who would be interested helping to make the site grow in popularity.

In return I am offering a certain amount of exposure outside of dA, the opportunity to grow with the site, with whatever rewards are available at any given time.

If you are at all interested in this, please send me a note or comment on this post.

I have recently had a little trouble from some deviants who have been featured on my blog - although they have no copyright restrictions on their pages, they have been offended that I have told them after publication rather than asking them before.

Therefore, I compiled a list of butterfly and moth photography as a test case, and have asked 17 deviants for their permission to showcase their images - as usual, the images have no copyright restrictions on the page.

After 48 hours I have received 3 replies - so Heaven only knows when that article will be published, if at all!

This is why I usually don't have time to ask for permission before publication!

However, I am always willing to remove images if the deviant is not happy about their work being featured outside of dA, and have done so a couple of times.

Today I have published an article on Dali and Surrealism - Then and Now. I have to inform some deviants that their work has been showcased (a courtesy I am not, at present, willing to give up) - but I am very nervous about doing so now.

Many sites feature work from deviantArt without informing the deviants either before or after publication - is it just human nature and should I continue as I'm going and not worry about some bad-mannered responses, or should I go with the flow and against my own morals and just not inform the deviants at all????

Inspired by Design has been posted for this week. Yet another collection of outstanding digital art and design. It never ceases to amaze me that the flow of fantastic art does not diminish week on week!